You could live with Kyle Hamilton at number two, but it’s still not a good move.
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Paul Rochon: Would you like to tell me, on a lesser note, what would be bad from the Lions?
A.J Reilly: Yes, I can, but I want to preface it by saying I can live with it if this happens, though, I will not be happy about it.
Okay. The bad for me is Kyle Hamilton at number two. All the talk about generational talent in the back end of the defense and all the attributes that he brings, like a big body. Good athleticism, all that kind of stuff. Taking a back end safety for your back end defense and paying him number two overall money.
The Bad
To me it’s just bad financial juju. It’s not going to go well for you. And so for me, drafting someone like Kyle Hamilton at two is a bad move. It’s not preposterous like drafting Malik Willis, but it is bad in the sense that if you were going to draft Hamilton, then look for a trade.
Even if that trade isn’t the value that a number two pick would be, you can still move back a few spots and probably still get Hamilton in that sense. And in that case, I’d be much more happy about it, but drafting him at two with no offers or not trading down or anything like that, is just an absolute, I can live with it. I’m not going to be happy about it, but there’s way better options to go than to draft that back end safety at number two.
Paul Rochon: I guess I should have gone first when talking about the bad because you just said everything I was about to say, down to the player himself and the reasoning. I guess I’ll add a little bit on that. Kyle Hamilton is a perfect example of something that would be poor decision making to me.
And number two, for the things that we talked about, it’s all about efficiency.
A.J Reilly: Could you live with it?
Paul Rochon: Could I live with it? I think high end safety is more valuable than a lot of people do. People have really devalued safety. And I actually don’t mind paying the safety 9 million bucks a year that he’s going to get.
It’s All About Value
We just paid Tracy Walker, $8 million per over three years, Brad Holmes sold out, which is probably a bit of an overpay, but we just did that for him to be a safety that we don’t think is the caliber that Kyle Hamilton’s going to be. The problem is it’s all about value. So you’re not getting value from a number two pick drafting a guy like Kyle Hamilton.
The 40 times, not everything. 10 yards split agility times. Kyle Hamilton is very large for a safety. He’s six foot four, a big dude at 220 pounds. He’s not going to run a four, two, it’s just not realistic. There are some red flags and there are some concerns there. One of my concerns is ironic because this 40 time has just eclipsed everything. It’s eclipsed all the talk, it’s oh my God, he runs a four-six, you can’t take him to the top five. Again, it’s not my hill to die on. I don’t love it. Of course, I would have liked to see him run a four-four five, that would have been wonderful.
And he would have cemented himself as a top five pick. He didn’t, that’s just reality. He’s not super fast, but he does play pretty fast on tape. A concern that I have is Kyle Hamilton is not a very good tackler. He hasn’t been a good tackler all of college. He’s whiffed on a lot of tackles and I need a guy that can come clean up. If you’re the last line of defense and I need you to make a stop, to not allow a touchdown.
I need you to be able to do that. And it’s great when you’re ranging and you can just break up the pass and not have to rely on that, but when they break a big outside run and you’re the last line of defense, I need you to be able to save a touchdown. And many times at Notre Dame, he showed not that he’s completely incapable of it, but he whiffed a lot of tackles, that’s a little concerning for me.
Secondary Concerns
Now that’s a secondary concern. You’re a safety, your read, your react, your ability to play the pass, those things are more important, but I’m picking the guy at number two. You take that along with maybe some athletic questions. I’m not saying he’s not an athlete, he’s actually a great athlete.
You look at his broad jump, his vertical at his size. He is a very good athlete. You just have some speed concerns, which I think are, at this point, a little overblown, we’ve gone too far with it, but again, we’re talking the number two overall pick. He has too many flaws in his game for me to take a number two.
A.J Reilly: And you want him to be able to have that whole backwards and if he doesn’t have that whole package, then it’s not worth the number two overall pick.
Paul Rochon: On the flip side of this, you can say, I think he’s going to be a stud, I think he’s going to be one of the best safeties in the NFL so I would take him at number two.
The issue with this is, even if you have the foresight to know that it becomes a position of draft value, the fact that you could trade down and probably get him. And if, even if you trade down and he’s gone, you’re going to get a comparable prospect, one that I will talk about a lot more next week.
There’s a corner that I like a lot in this draft and it’s not sauce. I think there’s plenty of other prospects in that similar grade range where you can trade back, get the capital, not Dole out that contract, not take the risk and maybe still get him. And even if you don’t get him, you can get someone else that is going to have the same potential.
It’s just a reach. And I don’t want to reach when it’s so important to be efficient, especially when you have the number two overall pick. I know a lot of people don’t believe a trade is going to be there. A trade will be offered. Somebody is going to want to move up. It might not be for a haul. You might not be getting offered multiple first draw picks because maybe they don’t value the tackle that they’re trading up for that highly.
They’re not trading up for a quarterback at number two. So maybe the value’s depressed a little bit, but somebody’s going to want to get ahead of another team to get somebody, there’s going to be somebody that come in, whether it’s the tackle of their choice, whether they really like Travon Walker or Kayvon Thibodeaux, somebody’s going to want to trade up for their guy.
Getting Your Worth
It all becomes a question of how much are you getting in return and is it worth it to trade back? And I would argue that it’s worth it at almost any cost. You’re going to get a little bit extra draft capital, and you’re not going to have to dole out the same size contracts because contracts drop pretty fast as we go through the early parts of the first round and that money does matter down the line.
You want to get the most talented players but money can not be your complete driving factor, but it’s all about efficiency in the draft and taking a guy like Kyle Hamilton at number two is not efficient. It’s not just because of the position he plays, it’s because he’s not a sure-fire complete talent.
I think there’s a safety that’s going to be available mid to late first round, that could have just as good, if not better of an NFL career. And that’s another reason I don’t want to take that guy and number two. I think it would be bad. We’ve had a lot of negative things to say, a lot of ways the Lions can mess up this draft.
A.J Reilly: Hold on a second. That safety at the end of the first round, did he wear the amazing blue last year?
Paul Rochon: He may have, and he might not have the athletic limitations that another safety does. He may have been used a little bit out of position on the necessity of Michigan. They may have masked how good he can be at the NFL level.
We’re going to talk a lot more about that next week at our super draft prep show. I don’t want to get deep into it. I’m just saying there’s options out there. You don’t need to take Kyle Hamilton at two. It would be bad. Yeah. We’ve talked a lot about bad.
A.J Reilly: Do I know you like the back of my hand or what?
Paul Rochon: There is not, Hey, we did the show on Ojabo, I believe it was me and you. I am not a fan of Ojabo, I don’t think that we should be touching him in the first few rounds. Maize and blue fans right now think that Ojabo was a steal at the end of the first round.
I completely disagree with that. We got a four-three safety on the board that may have some special on tap talent. Let’s talk about the good, about the way that the Lions can do good in this draft especially as it pertains to number two, which is really the big thing, right?
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